She also had to wait and stay with the caravan to be sure that her instincts were correct. Most of the time Evvy and Briar behaved as they always did when traveling. They rambled up and down the caravan, making friends with Traders and merchants alike. They helped with the horses, the meals, and cleanup. Briar spent idle moments in the back of the wagon putting together seed bombs. These were mixes of lethally long-spined thorny plants that he and Rosethorn had created to grow very fast when the cloth that held them struck the ground. Evvy had her own magical weapons to work on and she did so, knapping sharp edges onto disks of flint. All of that was perfectly normal. In the second search by imperial soldiers who looked for Parahan, Rosethorn thought both of her youngsters looked uncommonly pale. As the soldiers questioned other travelers, Briar put his arm around Evvy, when neither she nor he encouraged gestures of affection before strangers. They were cheerful enough when they answered the soldiers’ questions, but something was odd.
